River Karma

The crazy thing about New
Zealand rivers
is they change
all the time.
The rivers are
so young and
the boulders
shift so much
you’ve got to
treat every run as a first descent.
<
The four kayaks on top of the camper van outside the
Tongariro Crossing Lodge tell me I’m in the right place. And
as I step out of the car I’m greeted by Ben Brown, one of
the most experienced adventure kayakers in the world. “You
should have been here earlier,” he says, words no writer
wants to hear. “We found this sick waterfall today.”
It’s a Monday evening in mid-March and it’s the fifth and
final week of Red Bull Flow Hunters. Paddling and filming
the best whitewater and waterfalls in his native New Zealand
has been on Brown’s to-do list for years. The 33-year-old,
who travels the world in his kayak, is in his own backyard
this time. Along for the ride are fellow Kiwi Jared Meehan,
29, Rush Sturges, 27, from California, and Rafa Ortiz, 24,
from Mexico.
Theirs is a small world: they are four of the 15 to 20 kayakers
who can claim to make a living from the sport. All four are
keen chroniclers of their adventures. For a professional kayaker,
a camera and a computer are almost as important as a boat
and a paddle. The kayakers run the rapids during the day and
review the footage in the evening. When Brown introduces
me to the team, they’re on their laptops in one of the bedrooms
at the lodge, watching video clips and stills from various
cameras and GoPros used to capture the day’s action.
“New Zealand as a kayaking location has never been well documented,”
says Brown. “I wanted to do our rivers justice on this trip.” “New Zealand
as a kayaking location has never been well documented,” says Brown.
“I wanted
to do our
rivers
justice on
this trip.”
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